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Yugoslav Forces Return To Kosovo Buffer Zone
MIRATOVAC, Yugoslavia, March 14 (News Agencies) - Yugoslav troops marched into a tense buffer zone bordering Kosovo Wednesday in a NATO-backed operation to squeeze out Albanian separatists whose insurrection has threatened to spark a new Balkans war.
With NATO helicopters buzzing overhead, motorcades of Yugoslav jeeps followed by hundreds of infantry set off at dawn along muddy roads into the thickly wooded hills where Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia meet.
It was the first time Yugoslav troops have been allowed into the area since the end of the Kosovo conflict two years ago.
"There were no incidents. The operation has been conducted along a five kilometers [three miles] part of the buffer zone," said Milovan Coguric of the Yugoslav defense ministry.
The operation, which NATO and its former Belgrade foe planned together, is to stem the spread of an ethnic Albanian uprising from Yugoslavia to neighboring Macedonia.
It was launched from the Albanian-populated town of Miratovac on the edge of the buffer zone.
The deployment was overseen by army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic who commanded Yugoslav troops in the conflict in neighboring Kosovo in 1999.
It is designed to cut off the flow of weapons and men from the Albanian separatists to fellow fighters threatening stability in Macedonia, which has a large ethnic Albanian minority.
The deployment follows a NATO-brokered ceasefire between Belgrade and the separatists in southern Serbia reached three days ago.
In November, hundreds of heavily armed Albanian separatists of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB), launched a lightning campaign against Serb police, at the time the only force allowed in the demilitarized zone.
A few months later a similar group calling itself the National Liberation Army (UCK) emerged in Macedonia, forcing NATO to rethink efforts on containing the uprisings.
Yugoslavia and Macedonia, which last month signed an accord fixing their common border, have accused the separatists of promoting conflict with the aim of redrawing regional boundaries and creating a "Greater Kosovo".
Macedonian defense officials said Wednesday there had been some shooting in the southern tip of the buffer zone where Yugoslav troops were preparing to deploy, and warned of the risk of increased "provocations" as the operation unfolds.
European Union observers and KFOR representatives were monitoring the deployment.
In Miratovac itself, Albanian pupils were turning up for school as soldiers marched past. Schoolmaster Sulejman Shabani urged the soldiers to move away because villagers were frightened by their presence.
Local people have vivid memories of the ethnic cleansing campaign under Slobodan Milosevic's ousted regime.
But Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, Belgrade's envoy to the impoverished region, tried to be reassuring. He said, "Citizens have no reason to be worried" adding that military units "would not take any kind of measures towards the population."
He urged people to "remain calm," and urged them not to disrupt the security forces' return.
But one local Albanian said, "The youth are very afraid. Everyone fears a new war, so this return is still very dangerous."
The Yugoslav units, commanded by Yugoslav army general Ninoslav Krstic, also included de-mining teams.
Belgrade has not said how many troops were being deployed, but Coguric said they would be sufficient "for our task to be executed safely."
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